Privacy advocates have taken aim at plans by the French government to create a biometric identity database of nearly 60 million citizens.The massive database, known as Secure Electronic Documents (Titres Électroniques sÉcurisÉs or TES), was decreed by the government on October 30 in an effort to crack down on identity theft. The idea is to make it easier to obtain and renew identity documents.On Monday, the French Digital Council, a state watchdog that looks at the impact of technology on society and the economy, said the database should be suspended. Amassing so much personal information — names, eye colour, address, photo and digital fingerprints — in one place leaves “the door open to misuse that is as likely as it is unacceptable,” it concluded.The move sparked immediate outrage in the French media, with weekly magazine L'Observateur describing it as “terrifying”, and daily newspaper LibÉration calling it a “mega database that will do no good”.However, the government insists the new database will only be used to authenticate individuals, not to identify them.

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